Making sense (and, sometimes, nonsense) out of Current News, Issues, Politics

Monday, April 4, 2016

Friday's Job's Report: Another Month of Slow Wage Growth

Last Friday, the employment report for March stated that the country added 215,000 new jobs. The White House and other Democrats were quick to promote the fact that this was a record 73 months of consecutive job creation. However, missing in this so-called "record" is the fact that we also had 73 months of record low wage growth as noted by this chart from the St. Louis Federal Reserve's Economic Data (FRED) database:

Click on Image to Enlarge or Click on Link Below

The simple fact is that, even during the recession, year-over-year wage growth was higher than under Obama since his time in office. This is despite the fact that as of January 1st of last year, 29 states and the District of Columbia had increased their minimum wage.

The reality is that creating a job and creating a good paying job are two different things. 65% of the jobs created in this latest report were low paying, in the categories of retail, hospitality and leisure, and in health services like visiting assistance to the elderly. Higher paying manufacturing lost 29,000 jobs in the month.

The bottom line is that low pay increases are resulting in declining buying power for the average American worker.